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• Technical Note | HBS Case Collection | November 2017 (Revised November 2018)

  Blockchain, Cryptocurrencies and Digital Assets

  Ramana Nanda, Robert F. White and Alexey Tuzikov

  Keywords: Blockchain; cryptocurrency; Initial Coin Offering; ICO; Finance; Entrepreneurship; Financial Services Industry;

  Citation:

  Nanda, Ramana, Robert F. White, and Alexey Tuzikov. "Blockchain, Cryptocurrencies and Digital Assets." Harvard Business School Technical Note 818-066, November 2017. (Revised November 2018.)  View Details

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• Article | Harvard Business Review (website)

  The Hidden Costs of Initial Coin Offerings

  Jeffrey J. Bussgang and Ramana Nanda

  In recent years, much has been written about how the Blockchain is poised to transform traditional industries such as banking, real estate, and healthcare. More recently, it has gained attention as a way to finance new ventures, through what is known as an Initial Coin Offering (ICO). Less noticed, though, is ICOs appear almost antithetical to the standard approach to financing a risky venture. Structured experimentation, popularized by Eric Ries' The Lean Startup, has been widely embraced as the gold standard for how to approach the commercialization of radical new ideas. From Boston to Beijing to Bangalore, entrepreneurs and investors rattle off the importance of designing focused experiments to test hypotheses in a capital-efficient fashion in order to achieve product-market fit. But ICOs substantially limit the benefits associated with such staged experimentation, for three reasons.

  Keywords: Initial Coin Offerings; Business Ventures; Entrepreneurship; Finance;

  Citation:

  Bussgang, Jeffrey J., and Ramana Nanda. "The Hidden Costs of Initial Coin Offerings." Harvard Business Review (website) (November 7, 2018).  View Details

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• Case | HBS Case Collection | October 2018

  Accomplice: Scaling Early Stage Finance

  Ramana Nanda, Raffaella Sadun and Olivia Hull

  Accomplice, an early-stage venture capital firm based in Boston, is raising its second fund in November 2017. Since 2009, the firm has followed a seed-led investment model, investing in tech companies at the earliest stages, often when products and business models are still experimental. The firm’s partners are pleased with their preliminary returns and the deal flow they’ve been able to cultivate, in part by empowering local entrepreneurs to invest in promising new ideas on their behalf. The partners are confident their long-term returns will validate their investment strategy and positioning in the increasingly competitive VC market. Will investors agree?

  Keywords: venture capital; Early Stage Finance; Seed Finance; Scouts; Business Startups; Private Equity; Investment Portfolio; Organizational Structure; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Partners and Partnerships; Networks; Adaptation; Corporate Strategy; Technology; Financial Services Industry; Massachusetts; Boston; Cambridge; United States;

  Citation:

  Nanda, Ramana, Raffaella Sadun, and Olivia Hull. "Accomplice: Scaling Early Stage Finance." Harvard Business School Case 719-403, October 2018.  View Details

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